Written by former Senate education staffer and journalist Alexander Russo, This Week in Education covers education news, policymakers, and trends with a distinctly political edge. (For archives prior to January 2007, please click here. For posts after November 2007, please click here.) Comments on this blog are now closed.

By Alexander Russo July 27, 2007 at 12:55 PM

The main observation missing from today's NY Sun article on mayoral control (By 2009, Mayor's Control Of Schools Could End) is that going back is so tremendously difficult and unlikely. Mayors and their rivals are unlikely to support it, legislators who voted for mayoral control are unlikely to want to reverse themselves. Take Chicago, where not everything has gone well in the last 12 years but no serious effort to reverse the law has been mounted....

By Alexander Russo July 27, 2007 at 10:59 AM

Click below to see what your free daily email would look like, if only you signed up for one. It arrives at around 10 am, and so is timed beautifully to capture the morning news roundup plus whatever late-night tomfoolery I've come up with. Check it out, then sign up in the little box to the right under my pic. Free. Easy. No remembering required....

By Alexander Russo July 27, 2007 at 9:28 AM

There's not that much going on in the education-policy-politics space, but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone from starting new blogs on the topic. Last week's newest addition was NCLB 2, EdWeek's reauthorization blog. Now it's the Education Writers Association who are blogging about education, politics, and the 2008 campaign, according to Dayton Daily News blogger Scott Elliott (Barack Obama, education and me). Different reporters are going to track each of the main candidates for the next 18 months, and send their observations here. Congrats, condolences, per usual. *Free Daily E-Mail Updates Now Available -- See The Yellow Box ...

By Alexander Russo July 27, 2007 at 9:17 AM

Remember Tetris, the video game where you have to move falling objects so that they fit into your puzzle? Well, now there's StateTris, where the challenge is to move falling states to where they belong. As Boing Boing puts it, "Get 'em into the right spot or the US will overflow into Canada and everyone gets socialized medicine!." *Free Daily E-Mail Updates Now Available -- See The Yellow Box To The Right.*...

By Alexander Russo July 27, 2007 at 9:13 AM

Think the Dems are allocating education and social services money any better, or differently, than those big bad Republicans did? Think again. "When the House divvied up $282.1 million in earmarks for schools, hospitals and social programs, many poor congressional districts took a back seat to those represented by appropriators, party leaders and politically vulnerable lawmakers," according to this story from CQ Today (CQ Today - House Earmarks for Social Programs Follow Power and Political Needs). "The disparity can be seen by comparing the proposed disbursements to Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles, who represents the fourth-poorest House district as ...